


Endless (Mugen Redux)

by Savorysavery



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Despair, Alternate Universe - Non-Despair (Dangan Ronpa), Angst, Be Careful What You Wish For, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hope vs. Despair, Multi, Non-Despair Enoshima Junko, Romance, Slice of Life, Violence, Wish Fulfillment, alternate universe - no talents, established relationships - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-07-01 00:19:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15762732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Savorysavery/pseuds/Savorysavery
Summary: Let's try this again, hmm?In which Enoshima Junko wishes for a world where she can analyze something new and wakes up with the unfamiliar tang of Hope resting on the back of her tongue.Next Update: Oct. 4, 2018





	Endless (Mugen Redux)

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second time I've tried this story, though I think the second time is the charm versus the third, thankfully. After a good while, I've sorted out how I want this story to go, and how I want to present it.
> 
> I hope to update when I can. The story's there, it's just a matter of winding to it. Additionally, tags will be added as the story progresses.
> 
> Triggers To Know In Advance: This piece contains mentions of attempted and completed suicides, depression, PTSD, major character death, detailed descriptions of violence and gore
> 
> There will be no sexual violence in this piece. All relationships are consensual, safe, though they may be depicted as unhealthy in certain parts of the overall narrative.
> 
> Anyways, I'm very excited to be back at it with a story I started and stalled and hope you'll enjoy a look at a different kind of Enoshima Junko.

**Triggers To Know:** description of blood, kidnapping, ongoing description of mental torture

* * *

 

 

**_Tap._ **

 

 

 

**_Tap._ **

 

Red nails, bright as roses, which is fitting for the fresh, rosy pink of her hair. In the shadows, deep as blood, purpled by the light above. Its glow is weak, swaying: an earthquake rocks the world again, because that’s just Japan. Hiccups every minute, every hour: ripples running through the earth below.

 

_Tap._

_Tap._

**_Tap, tap._**

 

“I wonder.”

Red nails to match a voice pitched to be nails on a chalkboard high, soprano trilling. Then flat: limitless boredom flashing through pale, blue eyes.

“I _wonder_.”

 

Blink.

Tap.

**Tap.**

 

“What… is a world with _out_ Despair?”

Limitless boredom turns to flashes of curiosity. She sniffs, loud enough to cover up the clang of chains: handcuffs covered in leopard print fabric that's still got the smell of packaging on it. It’s a fashion must that she swears by for all her "new friends".

“What is a world with _d_ _ull_ Despair?

 

Pause.

**_Giggle._ **

 

“Nah, that can’t be!” Glasses appear from somewhere, slide down a slender, narrow nose. A ponytail, sleek and smart, winds like a snake ready to strike. “Certainly, that can’t be. Certainly, it _can’t_ be.”

The screech of a chair: ponytail strikes, whipping and snapping at the air behind her. “Despair is unpredictable. Change, change, change: never a constant.” She snaps, red nails clicking, and she’s back to being young, voice pitching high. It's just sweet enough to make your skin go clammy

“I wonder. Don’t you?” A huff of a laugh. There’s a flash of something ditzy, and within a blink, her hair is a set of curling twintails, then puffed out. Where’d she snatch her crown from?

 

_What’s going on?_

You get the feeling you won't know until it's too late.

 

“Here Us loud and clear, upon this decadent proclamation!” Her voice booms, and she lets out a proud peal of laughter, chest puffed out. “We wish to understand the nature of Hope to better understand the essence of Despair!”

Despair. The dictionaries at school describe it “the complete loss or absence of hope” in black type, tiny as a cricket’s claw. (Or is it just a leg…? No time for that!)

Further, there’s the sentence you saw, a quick flash before you tabbed away: “a voice full of self-hatred and despair”

 

**That is what she is, isn’t it?**

 

 

She’s living hatred, and it rolls from her in waves, crashing against everything. A wake of desperation is left, living chum for the sharks beneath her skin.

 

It doesn’t matter the face, or how quickly she changes: Evil in almost every world is inexplicably Human, and so is Enoshima Junko.  

 

“Let Us make a wish. That is your talent, right? How oddly specific!” That same giggle deepens until it’s deadpan and analytical. Her eyes are analytical, seeing through.

Piercing, one would say. If that even suffices.

“I _wonder_. How does one become The Ultimate Endless Wish-Maker? How do you find that out?” She’s sitting again, legs crossed at the ankle prim and proper. If it weren’t for her half-done up blouse and blatant JK gear, you’d think she was a young model on set, chatting aimlessly to fill the work day between posing herself for some glossy, conbini magazine. Instead, Enoshima Junko looks armed, all bark and bite.

“Did you wish for a day of ice cream and wake up cycles later with rotted teeth? Was it for a festival to never end so you could see the fireworks from the side instead of like everybody else? Are you like that box-office hit movie with the catchy songs? Is a meteor going to hit the town three years in the past?” She claps her hands and laughs like she's told the funniest joke in the 21st century.

There’s no time to answer because she plows ahead, single-minded determination driving her into a feeding frenzy. Everything about her becomes jagged, edges: pink hair juts on in shocks of locks, frozen in the air as if she’d used too much gel. Her hands are flying, and occasionally, she flips you the bird, just because she can.“If Hope I constant, then Despair must become unstable. If Hope is contentment, Despair is irritation, an itch you. must. _scratch_.” And she digs her nails into the tabletop, gouges the plastic. A red nail chips, flying into the shadows of the room.

She’s on the table now, and she’s howling: all of those voices combine. “Do you know what it is, you Cute Little Super Special High School Student? Do you?” She coos, and she spits a curse because her impatience is overriding her analysis, and she can't hold her speech style. It's already boring her. Still, she presses on, blowing you kisses.

 

Tap.

**Tap.**

 

Red nails, bright as roses, which is fitting for the fresh, rosy pink of her strawberry blonde hair. In the shadows, deep as blood, purpled by the light above.

Its glow is weak, swaying: an earthquake rocks the world again because that’s just the plate shifting below Japan. Hiccups every minute, every hour: ripples running through the earth below.

Something about this one, though, feels ominous: it rumbled change, still ringing in your ears.

 

Tap.

Tap.

Tap, **tap.**

“I  _wonder_.”

 

Red nails to match a voice pitched to be nails on a chalkboard soprano. Then down, down, down to a flat tenor: limitless boredom flashing through pale, contact blue eyes.

 

“I _wonder_.”

 

Blink.

Tap.

**Tap.**

 

 

 

 

 

“Despair is _**Escape**_.”

Her heartbeat is so loud now: it fills the room with secondary noise, white noise. Static that stuffs itself into every corner.

_**Tap.** _

“Hope is a **_Trap_**.”

Ricocheting off the walls: a drumbeat leading to the drop, the moment before you fall down the stairs.

 

_**Tap.** _

“If Hope is difficult, then Despair must be more difficult for Us.” The sudden boom of a Queen. “Exceed, supersede. Pass, surpass. Outdo, outstrip, outmatch. Surmount!”

 

Surmount.

Surmount.

**Surmount.**

 

_**Tap.** _

_**Tap.** _

_**Tap.** _

What is a world without Despair you ask?

 

A whisper: Hope is **_boring_**.

Glossy pink lips smack, and a tongue pokes out in frustration.

 

A gulp.

 

She clambers off the table, boots thudding on the ground. Her entire form is stiff, and her skin turns white, blood seemingly trapped in her heart, unwilling to flow, life tangled up in a hard, unmovable knot. “Despair is boring,” she utters, and its guttural, squeezed out like toothpaste at the bottom of the tube, barely there, hardly enough.

 

 

A dry huff of laughter: it creaks from her lips, falls like shards of long broken glass. "It's boring."

 

“Boring.”

“Boring.”

“Boring.”

“Boring.”

“Boring.”

“Boring.”

“Boring.”

“Boring.”

“Boring.”

“Boring.”

“Boring.”

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

_“Boring.”_

**“Boring.”**

**“Boring.”**

**“Boring.”**

**“Boring.”**

**“Boring.”**

**“Boring.”**

**“Boring.”**

**“Boring.”**

**“Boring.”**

**“Boring.”**

**“Boring.”**

**“Boring.”**

**“Boring.”**

**“Boring.”**

**“Boring.”**

**“Boring.”**

**“Boring.”**

 

**_“Bo...ring.”_ **

 

What _is_ a world with Dull Despair?

It was a world that she knew. She’d already puzzled out everything: the chicken and the egg was no mystery to her anymore. A world with Dull Despair was a world where Enoshima Junko’s analysis had overcome all barriers, dropping her into the world feeling of them all. 

 

**Boredom.**

 

Her fist pound in a flurry on the table. One moment she’s soft, another moment, flashes of gold on her crown: another, depressed, and another, keen and cunny. Another sharp, enough to cut, and then, absolute.

“I _wonder_.”

She reverts, snaps, and for a moment, this is Enoshima Junko: just her, outside her mind. No bars and chains. “Is there such a place that can renew Despair? A world where it doesn’t exist?” She clicks her tongue in blatant irritation: “Not like that, don’t be stupid. Despair exists where Hope exists: that’s just the law of the world. But… is there a place where World Ender is World Rejuvenation?”

A giggle: she looks so young, and so innocent. This is ice cream after school, late nights at a dinner for the battery of tests next week. This is dinner before a movie, an afternoon snack. She paused and just realized it.

 

Hard to believe she’s a monster.

But hey, she does with style.

 

“You know, like that one video game duology with angels and half-elves and that Great Big Tree? You know the one? It's got the shitty angel who claims he's your father, but we know what that's all about, yeah?"

The joke falls flat and she knows it, but like a wrecking ball, she swings straight through.

“A world where a challenge exists?” A sigh, wistful: she is a student, after all, just on the cusp of passing the university exam for her top pick. Hope, twisted as it is, shines in her eyes. What halcyon days these are. “Is there a world with no Hope for me? No Despair?”

 

 

**Pause.**

 

 

“No?”

 

Giggle.

Giggle, giggle, giggle, giggle, 

**_giggle_. **

The kind that shakes your shoulders, prelude a spit-take, the kind that makes your bones rattle around. Listen close enough and it sounds like ten-yen coins clicking together: sharp and tinny.

“You, who can grant a wish to any person, one time.” Back on the table: she settles down though, eyes wide and uninterested, had cocked just so. Then it all melts into a sly smile as she leans forward, elbows digging into her thighs.

“If my Despair has ceased it Unpredictability… If my Despair has ceased to be engaging… then I will Predict what is my Unknown.” She lunges forward, hands snatching and snapping like a vice. “No Despair, No Hope: A fresh slate. A new chance for Enoshima Junko, the Ultimate Kogal.” A flash in her eyes. “Trick the Ultimate Analyst with a mystery even she can’t solve.”

 

_Is that okay, Matsuda-kun?_

 

Something pools in Junko’s eyes at His name. How long has it been since She Herself has cried? How her eyes sting and burn from lack of use like this: she only tears up when there’s contacts to change or she's been around her horrendously "stinky" sister.

 

 

_Mukuro-chan, Mukuro-chan, is this okay? Am I allowed this chance?_

 

 

 

The tears fall faster, and the laughter starts again, whirring to life between gasps and coughs. She’s really crying, snot and wetness and great big whopping breaths of air.

 

_Who will carry this to their grave?_

_Is it that kind of secret?_

_Can I die for my happiness?_

_**Should** _ _I?_

 

Then as quick as it came, brutal absolution settles right back in, and it flashes in her side.

Anger burns her and she remembers: no, they can't come on this adventure. Enoshima Junko cast them both aside just for this moment, took on the burden of heartbreaking Despair. The reminder resonates in her and a haze wash over her mind in desperate waves. She won't let  **anyone** but herself have _this_ moment.

 

“Shut up.”

_Supersede._

 

“Shut up.”

_Surpass._

 

“Shut up.”

_Outdo._

 

“Shut up.”

_Outstrip._

 

“Shut up.”

_Outmatch._

 

“Shut up.”

_Surmount._

 

“Shut up.”

_Surmount._

 

“Shut up.”

 

**Surmount.**

 

This is where Enoshima Junko thrives, in pits of chaos, deep and gnawing and unending and as the sensation of dropping sinks into her belly like a weight under water, she lets out a bark of laughter, nails digging into her palms until eight crescents mar them, reopening old wounds. This is where she succeeds best: roll the dice of life and revel in whatever happens. Snake Eyes or Bust: she can’t help but toss away all her care. 

“Shut up!”Another chipped nail: it’s both middle fingers, which in Another Story, would be a clue to something, the last piece to a mystery. Here’s it’s just a busted manicure.

But it doesn’t stop her from raising her voice and making a wish: just one per person, one per life.

 

Remake.

Redo. 

 

_**One more chance.** _

One more _taste_.

 

After all, Despair can’t be boring. 

Despair **can’t** be boring.

 _Despair **can't**_ be boring.

   
It.

**Just.**

**Can’t.**  

 

**No.**

 

 

It.

**Absolutely.**

**WON’T.**

 

Her fists are pounding the table again but it's not childish at all. It's loud and jarring and it makes the bits of nails jump. Red, red, _red_ : leap into the air and crash down. Pound, pound, **pound** : her hands could break the world.

 

They _**will** _ break the world. Bit by bit, she'll tear it all down, and when all is said and done, Enoshima Junko will have the world that she wants, come whatever may.

 

“I want that world! Give it to me! Give me, give me, give me!”

 

The world presses down on you, and everything turns spotty, then ripples, and turns black.

 

_Is this… the end?_

_Ugh, what a drag._

_Uh, excuse me, what are you doing?_  

 

And there's the itch, then the burn: your talent draws out of you, and you feel every part of your body ache. 

 

_Come on, come on, give me this wish! You can do whatever, right?_

 

But yours comes from your soul, and it slips away each time, bits drawing out for whatever someone wants. Piles of money. World hunger ended. A thousand kisses. Fame. More time. You've heard so many wishes, from a new popsicle to a new talent, though those wishes always fail. No one ever remembers that talent costs.

 

_Because like, I already know I'm going to die._

_But why not try to make a new memory?_

_No one likes the same story anyways. Isn't that what can kill a franchise?_

 

You can't imagine doing this 7,644,583,234 and counting. The lives add up, just so you can keep track of them because isn't talent, natural and magnificent, a wonderful thing? Isn't that what they told you? It's why your uniform and everything came free. It's why they searched the world just. for.  _you_. You're supposed to be special: be better. Be the best the world can offer in your generation.

 

_ So let's make this exciting! _

 

Yet you can't imagine  _ever_ doing this again.

 

_ U-pu-pu-pu! _

 

Thank goodness it's just one wish per person.

 

_Let's give it all we've got!_

 

Because Enoshima Junko makes you never want to wish again.

 

_It's **wishing**  time!_

 

Someone's screaming now: it might be both of you. Who can be sure?

You certainly can't: the world is a mess of dots now, burning bright white and pink, and then red. Red as blood, which you can feel running from the corners of your mouth, from your eyes. You blink, but more comes: worthwhile talent, right?

At least even  _Enoshima_ has the decency to call 119 for you, though your silly wish to use your talent to grant everyone a wish means you'll survive this regardless. Maybe the EMTs will ask for some fulfillment while you're getting a saline drip. It would save you the effort of extra dehydration. Fulfilling wishes _is_ rather drying, you think, and then the pain becomes too much to snark.

It's never hurt this much: you normally get a small nose bleed because Want is a powerful thing, but Enoshima Junko's Want is on an unreadable scale, and it begs your life and a pound of flesh, which comes dripping from you in a steady  _plip-plip-plip_.

 

_Close your eyes and make a wish, Ryoko. You can do it._

_Make a wish, Junko._

_One chance, one gamble: do it._

 

**Do it.**

 

You're sure you're screaming now, but then everything blacks out.

 

Guess you'll never really know.

 

* * *

 

 

“...Junko.”

 

_…Huh?_

 

 

 

 

 

 

“...Hey… Hey, Jun?”

 

_Hey, stop it: don’t you see you’re interrupting a scene?_

_Let me have my dream._

 

“...Enoshima-chan?”

 

_Puh-lease let me have this._

_…Wait, is this the time I’m supposed to wish? Shit, did I miss my cue?!_

_Come on, author, you're supposed to let me know things like this!_

_Well, fuck, here goes. Never too late, right?_

_After all, I came up with a catchphrase. So... let's try it again._

 

_It's... wishing time! Heh heh heh heh **heh...**_

 

_I want a world where there’s something new for me. A challenge that even I can’t solve. Wait! A challenge I **can** solve, but only once I've figured out what I really, really want. Don't let me die until then, okay?_

 

“...Juju!”

 

_But don’t make it boring. If this world is going to be plain boring, I don’t want that._

_I might as well die then._

 

“...Ju-chan?”

 

_And don’t let me live with Hope? I don’t wanna be like the Ultimate Bed-Wetter over there._

_**Snicker** … Hey, that’s pretty funny, isn’t it Naegi? Aren’t you gonna laugh? _

_...Of **course** you aren't.  _

 

 _Anyways…_ _Just give me that kind of world: no Hope, no Despair even. Just a challenge._

 

 

 

 

 

_… But if I die without Despair, then what’s the point?_

 

“...Junko-san?”

 

_… What? Can’t you see I’m having a moment here?!_

_Geez, quit trying to transition things!_

_You know, I could go on for pages!_

 

_...Wait, it's time for us to get this story on the road?_

 

_Well... fine, fine, do what you need to do. Just make sure it's good enough to keep the readers, okay?_

 

 

**“It’s time to wake up.”**

 

 


End file.
